At J.Crew, WWJD means What Would Jenna Do

Jenna Lyons started as an assistant designer in 1990, and as she ascended to become the company's president and executive creative director, J.Crew's glamour quotient grew accordingly.Handout
/ J.Crew

It's the idea of this iconic basic, and . . . the variations on it. It feels a little boy because it's a T-shirt, then the sequins make it feel a little bit more girl but again, in that solid colour so it's not dappled sequins. It's just boom, one colour."

Bright pants: "The Cafe Capri comes in tan but also blue and pink, and I'm surprised at how many people seem to be converted to colour as a neutral. We weren't sure, but they're selling out!"

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When the venerable American retailer J.Crew was born as a catalogue business in 1983, it was an ultra-preppy brand. Who could have imagined their signature look would evolve to include both madras stripe and saucy leopard print? Jenna Lyons, who started as an assistant designer in 1990. As the fashionable designer ascended to become the company’s president and executive creative director, J.Crew’s glamour quotient grew accordingly. At a media sneak-peek on Wednesday night, gobs of twinkling jewellery are displayed under bells jars — wristloads of bracelet bling to make even eccentric heiress Millicent Rogers envious — and the store is liberally sprinkled with accessories and clothing in a confident shade of near-neon orange that J. Crew calls Vivid Flame (think original Le Creuset orange). Many staffers have customized their opening-night outfits around fall’s No. 2 Pencil Skirt, much like their style tribe’s leader. Because Lyons and her much-admired dressing panache were also in attendance, only hers was an arresting Astroturf-green sequined version of the No. 2, worn with a gauzy Breton-stripe sweater and several clinking bracelets. Nathalie Atkinson sat down with the creative director to talk sequins, colour and feathers.

Q: Styling plays an important role in the brand, both in merchandising the store and in the catalogue.

A: And there’s a lot of personalization here in Canada, which I love. That works really well for us because so much what we do is about that, making things your own. We try to show a similar item in many different ways. One of the nice things about having a catalogue is that every month we’re able to show maybe the same sweater but completely differently. One month it might be with little shorts and ballet flats and really casual, the next a pencil skirt, more jewellery and more tailored, and the next might be with a slouchy men’s trouser. We also might be giving you a way to wear it that you hadn’t thought of, that moment of ‘I already own that sweater, maybe I’ll buy those pants.’ Or oh gosh I’d you’d forgotten about a piece and pull it out and wear it a different way. That’s so important — that people feel that they’re getting value and quality out of something and not just style. I think everyone works really hard — we know what it means to part with your cash and want you to feel good about what you’ve bought. And also that there’s a quality of timelessness so that you’re not shelving it three months later and feeling just, ugh.

Q: The idea of separates dressing, of building a personalized outfit from scratch every day, can be its own form of tyranny.

A: Oh completely! Especially if you’re not confident with what you’re doing.

A: Yet the building blocks remain the pillars of American style — mining those basics even if they’re tweaked in proportion or detail from season to season.

Q: I think that’s true. Ultimately if you look at the DNA of the company — and it’s something I feel strongly about as well — so much of what I think is really great about clothing in general is classic, old-school menswear. The classic white shirt, the trench coat, the great pair of trousers. Those things, well-tailored blazers with beautiful collars, are truly rooted in menswear. And there’s always an undertone of that in everything that we do. That never goes away even if we have ruffled shirts, paring it back to a menswear base.

Q: That juxtaposition of opposites playing off each other is a recurring theme.

A: That to me is important — the opposite. If it is a menswear tailored suit or trouser then put a really skinny kitten heel or tons of jewellery. Or if it’s a ruffly shirt then make sure it’s paired off with something a bit more masculine like slouchy jeans. but it’s never feminine tight and girly whole look.

Q: Since 2008 there has been monthly feature called Jenna’s Picks, a spread singling out non-J.Crew products that you love. This summer the website offered free song downloads of favourite singles. This seems to be a time, not just at J.Crew but other vendors like Net-a-Porter, when retailers are edging more and more into creating editorial for their customers.

A: I think there is a need to make things feel a little more intimate and exciting and people are looking for a level of integrity, and a different level of interest, in something. For instance we’ve been selling branded products that we buy like Sperry, Alden Shoes and Lulu Frost jewellery. One of the things of having that curated element and things feeling a bit more, to your point, editorialized is that it’s not all about us. It’s about our point of view on all kinds of things. I think people want that — most people don’t have the time to really shop and find things on their own so being able to have something curated for someone well, nine times out of ten you’re interested in the same things your friends are interested in. That’s how it works right? So if you like the group of people who are making the clothes, chances are very good that you’re going to like some of the other things we’re looking at, whether it’s the best lipstick we think is out there or the right nail polish, the book, the sunscreen, the perfume or the record.

Q: Men and women don’t necessarily shop the same way.

A: For the most part, you look at the men’s product versus the women there are two very different stories going on. This is not my original quote but I use it often: if you ask a man what his favourite thing is in his closet he’ll say the thing he’s had for forty years. If you ask a woman, it’s probably the item she bought yesterday. The why the way we approach brands for men and women is slightly different. For men we look at established heritage brands, and ultimately we like those things that feel handmade and really weathered and worn — or have the ability to get weathered and worn over time. With women’s it’s a little bit more about that thing that feels a little special and new. (And there aren’t as many heritage women’s brands.) Whereas with women they want that sense of discovery, to find something new that no one else has seen before.

Q: The women’s collaborations are a bit different from the heritage brands.

A: There’s also for us, I think, a generosity of spirit to talk about somebody who’s maybe a young and unknown designer and give them some exposure that maybe they didn’t have. That is important to us, the idea of being generous, supporting those who don’t have the same voice, audience and exposure that we do. We mail 3 million catalogues a month so there’s a lot of people who get to see your name if you’re on a page! And that’s a nice thing to be able to do.

Q: J.Crew is known for use of colour and that seems especially the case in the assortment this season — the colours are more vivid than ever with eye-popping red handbags, cobalt blue flats, rich purples. For that particular colour sensibility, is it as simple as being inspired by a certain shade of lipstick and translating that into a shoe, or something else?

A: So much of it is the base that you use. For instance with our cashmere, we buy cashmere that’s actually super white tops (tops is what the cashmere is before it’s made) because if you don’t buy that, you can’t get bright-bright hot luscious pinks, you can’t achieve deep raspberries . . . we’re tried, but you can’t do it! We switched to Italian cashmere about 7 or 8 years ago and the range you can get is much better. The same with the (ballerina) shoe — that leather is actually really fine leather and the reason we are able to get that really saturated, clear colour. So much of it has to do with the quality that you start with. We spent a lot of time, too, on that green wool (the jade green #2 Pencil Skirt). There’s a lot of heather in it so it makes the colour, even though it’s vibrant, feel a little more approachable.

Q: On the runways and in designer fashion, colour is the new neutral. J.Crew went heavy on colour this fall, too. How do you know when the core customer is ready for that trend, to make fuchsia pants the new basic?

A: When we think about it too much, I think we stumble. We do what we think is right and there is a pulse that we feel inside the office. Do I think that customers were as ready for the fuchsia pant and the blue or red pant as we thought? They were actually so ready for it that we don’t have any more stock in it, which is kind of a bummer! I think we cases under-estimate in some cases what the customer is ready for.

Q: The fall collection silhouettes and feeling were inspired in party by two movies, set in the 1920s and 1930s. Can you elaborate?

A: In Bonnie & Clyde, I love that sort of mens-y but still feminine, and the softness in The Great Gatsby, the wispiness, was a sort of play as well. It’s just a touch of that — we don’t go super-whispy, we’ve been kind of cleaning up a little bit especially with the past year, feeling like we wanted to move away from having a lot of ruffles and a lot of embellishment and a lot of sparkly things. At a certain point it just became not special any more and that’s when we felt it was time to move on. Waistlines have changed so dramatically in the past year — everything’s coming up, everything’s getting tucked in and a bit more tailored and a little cleaned up and not so jewelled and not so sparkly. I still love a sparkle — all day long! — but now it’s in a lacquered colour as opposed to like, a piece-y reflective chunk of something.

Q: You’ve talked in the past about mass market (J.Crew) versus fast-fashion (the cheap and cheerful), which are different things.

A: Fast-fashion is a tricky thing. It just eliminates the opportunity for quality, by nature of what it is, it’s hard to do really good quality fast fashion and we’re not interested in making clothes that don’t feel worth what you’re paying for them. Our brand has always been about quality at the price that matches the value. We haven’t seen a ton of price resistance when the value and quality is really there. That’s something that we’ve stressed a lot, making sure that we’re communicating to the customer why the price is what it is. We make our shoes in Italy for instance and made a whole video about that. I think it’s important for people to understand that so if they pick something up, they shouldn’t be surprised by the price.

Q: Like the occasional J.Crew Collection $1,500 ostrich-feather skirt — which is still notably cheaper than a designer version of the same would be.

A: They are! And that’s the win. We’ve seen a lot of people convert, which has been exciting for us. Obviously that’s a very special tier of our business but it exists and I think it’s a nice thing to have in the mix — I certainly partake in it quite a bit.

Q: Sequins, and leopard print, together. Somehow I doubt the founders back in 1983 thought those would ever be a core part of the brand.

A: Oh no no no no no! (laughs) And that was a big thing when we started to do leopard. It was a big, company-wide Whoa. But now it’s part of the signature.

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Jenna's Quick Picks

- Girls on film

I just watched Blow-Up for like the third time. I also just watched Harold and Maude — I mean, how damn cute was she? Maude, I loved her. And The Eyes of Laura Mars. Oh My God the clothes were insane.

- Karaoke song

Tainted Love by Soft Cell

- Lipstick

Red Square velvet matte lip pencil from NARS

- Collects

Vintage costume jewellery

- Dream splurge

What I love but really can’t afford is Verdura. The cuffs. That’s a dream though, we’re talking like at least $45,000!

- Signature scent

Creed Silver Mountain Water. I know, every time I say it makes me sound like a country hillbilly.

- Navy or black?

Navy! I don’t wear black. I don’t think black is that interesting. And a navy goes with any colour whereas black, in my opinion, basically goes with camel. And I don’t like black and colour.

- Style crush

Alison Mosshart from The Kills. I want to be her! I’ve seen them, I saw her play with The Dead Weather . . . and I also saw her play with The Kills. I am completely obsessed with her. Every time I see her I realize that I don’t have an ounce of cool in my body. But that’s okay, I’ll get over that. She’s the coolest chick on the planet.

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